XP hangs at startup

[RyanGrob]

So recently my computer decides it wants to hang at startup. It boots fine, see the loading bar for all of 3 seconds and goes to the desktop super fast but then things get hairy. Basically the only things I have at bootup are AIM and MSN Messenger. When I get to the desktop usually AIM pops up fast and looks like its working while MSN usually doesn't. At this time I am unable to open any programs or do anything. It's not frozen because I can right click and things are responsive. After about 2 minutes I can use things again. I thought MSN would be the problem but it's not. I remove it from startup and same result. I even uninstalled it but the problem still persists. I can open My Computer but it just has the flashlight until things are okay. My build is only a few months old. I didn't have this for awhile and then when I tried installing Vista on another drive it started happening. I do NOT have the vista drive hooked up. My Specs are:

DFI LanpartyUT nF4 Ultra-D
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (270x10 1.45v)
2x G.Skill 1GB HZ PC4000 | 3-4-4-11-1T @2.6v
BFG Nvidia 7600GT 256mb PCI-E x16
Seagate 320gb(Perpendicular Recording) - 3 GB/S SATA
NEC Black 16X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW
SPARKLE FSP550PLG 550 Watt PSU

My PC does this overclocked or not. I don't get what could be causing this but it's happened in my previous build also. Any advice is appreciated.

 

[RyanGrob]

Up. I know it's hard to narrow down whatever my problem may be, but anything you got will help me otherwise I guess I'll just reformat. Thanks

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Do a clean boot by unchecking all startup items in msconfig and adding them back one at a time till you find what is causing the conflict.

 

[flexy]

network related....something tried to access the network and cant.....might be a non running service...disabled network device...network settings....dhcp etc... i'd look there

 

[RyanGrob]

I'll give the network idea a shot. I have a network bridge since my PC has 2 NIC cards. Could that be causing it?